Happy Friday! As usual we’re linking up with Cynthia, Mar and Courtney for the Friday Five! This weeks topic is race day surprises. We’ve run into a couple of race day snags (nothing too major, knock on wood!) that weren’t the most pleasant surprises!

1. The weather report was WRONG. You can stalk the weather report for a week straight leading up to a race but weather can change very quickly. This is one thing that we’ve experienced living in Northern New York. We ran a race at the end of March and the entire week it looked like it was going to be relatively mild only to wake up race morning to have gotten freezing rain over night topped with 3 inches of snow. The only solution for this is to be prepared for anything! If you’re traveling for the race be sure to bring along a variety of options that can be layered if necessary.

2. Technology failure: During Canal Run just a couple of weekends ago, my fully charged (or so I thought) iPod died 25 minutes into the race. This made me panic a bit because I’m somebody that needs to have music when I run. Thankfully I was able to use my phone for the remainder of the race but it did make me think that I should get more comfortable not having anything to listen to.

3. Stomach problems: Sometimes food just doesn’t sit well. You can avoid this as best as possible by eating carefully in the days before a race. The night before eat something that isn’t likely to upset your stomach. Bring some Pepto along just in case!

4. Bonus swag: I’ll switch gears for the last two. It’s always a nice surprise when there’s unexpected swag at a race! When we ran Buffalo in May there was finisher’s gear available after the race which we loved!

5. An unexpected PR/ age group place: This has happened to me (Jen) once! We were running a local 5k and I’m not usually one to get an award so we left the race before the awards started. A little while later i get a text from a friend saying I had placed second in my age group. Of course, it hasn’t happened since!